Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a popular focus of vice presidential speculation, is not being vetted by Mitt Romney’s campaign, according to ABC News. The network’s report, from unnamed sources, does not rule out the possibility that Rubio might yet be asked as speculation mounts on a potential running mate for Romney, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.

Prominent Republicans, including former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, have publicly encouraged Romney to consider Rubio. The freshman senator is popular among conservatives and considered a possible bridge to Latino voters, with whom Romney trails President Obama by a wide margin.

And Rubio has been a faithful Romney surrogate, campaigning alongside the former Massachusetts governor and praising him in interviews.

But Romney has hinted that his running mate will be not a rising star—like Sarah Palin four years ago—but rather someone cast in the mold of Dick Cheney, George W. Bush’s vice president. Last fall, Romney said Cheney is a “man of wisdom and judgment, and he could have been president of the United States. That’s the kind of person I’d like to have—a person of wisdom and judgment.”